


O4A

by Anonymous



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Closeted Character, Hook-Up, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Online Dating, Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:06:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23223736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Jonny's not in heat. He's not looking for a boyfriend or more than one rough fuck from an alpha in rut to get him through the week. He didn't know it'd be Patrick Kane on the other side of this app.
Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Comments: 166
Kudos: 298
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> filling the prompt: _Jonathan Toews/Patrick Kane, A/B/O, one of them is an alpha and plays in the NHL, the other is a non-player omega who he secretly sleeps with_ [on the kink meme](https://gethawksdeep.tumblr.com/post/611061979473461248/jonathan-toewspatrick-kane-abo-one-of-them-is)

_I don't have any pics up so you probably won't answer this, but I'm interested._

Jonny stares at his phone, frowns at it, fully opens the response to the Hut ad he put up five minutes ago and sees an entirely blank profile except for _Eyes: Blue_ and the username Hut2259403.

They’re right, he does ignore these. Doing otherwise gets him immediate requests for shots of his wet asshole.

He goes back to scrolling the Chicago tag, opens an ad from a guy with nice biceps, but the ask is for someone in heat. Par for the course. Next ad, amazing jawline, also asking for heat. There are a couple of ads that don't specify, but they're dead—last seen 4 days ago—and when he gets a new ping he opens it to read, _hey man you in heat?_

He sighs, sinks down further into the couch, stomach tight with a mixture of impatience and the low thrum of arousal he's been dealing with for fucking days.

The first message is still sitting there in his inbox, anonymous but at least comprised of a full sentence, so he opens it back up and taps out, _Are you in rut?_

He can see the guy's still active and, judging from his little image-less icon in the lower left hand corner, sitting with the window open, but Hut2259403 doesn't start typing immediately, takes a few moments before sending, _I will be in about an hour, just now coming off Quells._

Jonny blinks at the screen.

He frowns again, opens his own ad back up to make sure he indicated his dry status, sees that, yes, he did, and goes back to the messenger.

_You were on Quells?_ he sends. _For how long?_

Another moment.

_Pushing 3 months, for work._

Jesus Christ. Post-suppressant rut? After three fucking months?

Jonny should probably be neck deep in heat for anything like that but his belly floods hot, turns over at the thought of taking it on anyway.

He bites his bottom lip, chews at it and palms his dick into a more comfortable position. _Lol how am I supposed to know you're not fucking with me? What's up with the profile?_

This time there's immediate typing, once again for too long, but eventually, _I don't really use this app, just looking for something tonight._ Then one short pause before, _You look good. I'll send my pics if I can get your number._

Jonny lets out a quiet snort.

Alright. Instead of Eyes: Blue, this dude should've filled in DISCREET DISCREET DISCREET.

_Cool,_ Jonny types. _You want me to host?_

There's another pause, this one much longer. _If you want to meet up yeah I was hoping that._

Yep.

It's fine, actually, for a one-night stand. And sometimes closet cases are the exact kind of handsy Jonny wants if they're not so nervous they can't get it up. If this guy’s not lying though… that shouldn't be an issue.

_How you planning on getting here if you're coming off Quells?_

_Haha, hoping you'll give me that number before it’s too late._ And right before Jonny's about to send a response: _I don't sink too deep until there's slick in my nose anyway._

It’s been a long ass week of Jonny’s most difficult patients, laying out a mobility plan for a new car accident survivor, and training an assistant, so that’s the excuse he gives himself when his insides throb. He doesn’t even know what this guy looks like but fuck, he needs railed.

He pushes himself to his feet to shake out some of the sudden energy in his legs, feels the very edge of that telltale warmth in the base of his spine.

God, he better not be lying.

He taps out his number in the kitchen after a long drink of water, pulls up the profile of a third response to his ad while he waits for Hut2259403 to make good on his word, which he does as Jonny’s scrolling through an unnecessary amount of workout pics. Derek sure likes the gym. 

The text contains a headless shot from the side of a guy in sweats and a tight t-shirt. Little waist, nice ass, nice arms. Then a second shot from the front, t-shirt pulled up to show off abs, but Jonny’s eyes are drawn to his jacked shoulders.

His stomach flips over again.

He sends off, _You look good too,_ after zooming in on the bare amount of hair underneath the guy’s belly button. _Dick pic and I’ll give you my address_ 😉

_What? I don’t get one?_

Jonny smiles down at the screen, warm everywhere now. _You’ve seen my face bud, you first._

He likes this part, the start of the buildup when he's landed something he's into, the slow drip of adrenaline that gets his heart going.

_I don’t have those just lying around on my phone._

So not just a discreet closet case, but a paranoid one, too. 

Any alpha who does this shit remotely regularly has pics to send on the fly, usually taken when their knot’s at its thickest. Jonny’s got several wet pics—ass high, legs spread, fingers hooked in. He’s not about to get on all fours and take those every time he’s fishing for dick.

Case in point: he gets a notif from Hut and when he switches back to the app, he’s met with a picture of Derek’s junk. No hello, no request to see Jonny’s pretty hole, just a fat cock and a hairy knot.

Jonny bites at his lip again. He really wants Hut2259403 to come through, but if he doesn’t this dude might be his only chance to get it tonight. He sends Derek a quick _how far along are you?_ , because he’s not about to drive halfway across town for an alpha in mid-rut who just realized they want company to help take the edge off. A knot feels good no matter what, but Jonny isn’t about half-assed fucking anymore. 

A text from Hut2259403 comes in as he’s waiting for Derek’s answer: _Give me a sec._

Oh. That’s hot. Almost a surprise with how quick it gets to him, a shock of heat between his legs. He scrolls back to the pics the guy sent, looks at those arms again, the shoulders, imagines the way they'd flex jerking himself off, making himself hard. The idea that he isn’t just sitting on his couch sending pre-saved pics, but actively trying to convince Jonny specifically to let him hit it… works. It works.

He’s definitely wet now. 

“Fuck,” he says under his breath, “fuck, I hope your dick’s nice.” He zooms in again on his abs. “Please have a nice dick.”

He gets another Hut notif but ignores it, sits back and snakes a hand into his sweats.

There’s a bit of tackiness behind his balls and he taps a finger there, feels the heat build up as he waits.

“Come on,” he mumbles, rubbing hard with his finger, a pressure that zings hot into his cock. 

The pic comes in when he's added another finger to the first, circling just above where he can feel himself getting wetter.

Oh, it’s nice.

Fuck, it’s more than _nice._

Jonny’s belly floods with more heat, gives a sharp, overwhelming swoop, and he sinks deeper into the couch, spreads his legs out. 

The pic was clearly taken fast in a bathroom, crooked and just this side of blurry, but it doesn’t matter. The guy is packing. He’s long and thick and hard and cut, with the head a deep red already, glistening at the slit. Anyone would have to prep themselves properly to take that thing, even with extra slick. Even in heat. The guy’s hand is wide with thick knuckles Jonny can imagine bumping good against his rim. 

His thumb's pressed on the knot at the base like he's making himself feel it, and Jonny wonders how sensitive it is even while it's little. He’s met alphas who could come just from that.

_I’m not filled out yet,_ the text under the pic says. _Quells are still kicked in._ When Jonny doesn’t reply right away, he sends, _It gets big, I promise._

Jonny doesn’t care. He’d sit on the dick alone, alpha or no. But the thought of a fattened up knot attached to _that_? Yeah. He’s in.

_This better be your dick,_ he types quickly after wiping his fingers on his sweats. _Or I’m kicking you out._

His thighs are already all achy, cramped and tensed because he just wants to _open._ He knows what an alpha like this can do, knows that exact shivery-high he can reach taking the kind of knot Jonny knows it's gonna be.

_It is._

Jonny exhales loudly. He wants to ask for a pic of the dude’s knot-ring as proof. Wants to see him all tied up for rut even if it’s not all out yet, but that’s the kind of thing easy to find online so instead he texts, _Take another pic with three fingers under your dick._

Notifs keep pinging from Hut. He quickly opens his settings to turn them off and goes back to his texts. The pic comes through just like he asked.

Same bathroom, same angle. Less blurry. Three fingers right where he asked for.

Okay.

Just to make absolutely sure the dude knows, he types, _I’m not in heat,_ and prepares himself for a ghosting.

Everything in him also hopes he’s not gonna get a _you will be once I’m done with you_. He really doesn’t want to say goodbye to a post-suppressant fuck. But he’s been doing this long enough to know how to field out the alphas that won’t make it worth his time, no matter how hot or how hung.

The typing bubble appears, then disappears. Then appears again.

_Should I bring lube?_ isn’t what he expects to come through once it does, and he laughs once, sudden and loud.

_No_ , he replies. _But you might wanna bring your own rubbers._

_Does that mean you're giving me your address then?_

Jonny smiles again and types it in as promised, gets back to his feet and hits send in the bathroom while he reaches in to turn the shower on.

He pulls his shirt off over his head and from the sink his phone dings three times in quick succession with 👍, and _Getting ready, Quells fading fast_ , and finally _lol not to be pushy but it really would be cool if you sent a pic._

The granite counter is cool and grounding when Jonny leans his hip against it. _Any requests?_

_Something where I can see your face, put 4 fingers up_

Proof that Jonny isn’t catfishing is fair enough. He takes a practise pic of himself to make sure the light’s half decent, then turns completely to the mirror, leans in close to pull strands of his hair in the right direction. He shifts his hand down to his pants once he’s satisfied, tugs them low on his waist, enough that if the guy’s remotely perceptive he’ll see that Jonny’s waxed and smooth, see the tell-tale bulge of a semi right at the edge of the counter. 

He rarely does this for one-night stands—his Hut profile contains plenty already—but it’d be a lie to pretend he doesn’t like doing it, ass a little wetter as he arches his back, flexes just enough that it still looks natural. 

The shower’s steaming up the bathroom, so he takes the pictures quickly and sends the one where his smile is a little goofy and the curve of his ass is on easy display. 

The reply is almost instantaneous. 

_God you’re hot. Okay I’m on my way._

The praise gets more warmth rushing through Jonny's middle, and when he types and sends _Hurry up_ , he hopes that returns the favor, then it's into the shower fast because he still needs to pick up the unfolded laundry in the living room and two days' worth of dinner dishes off the coffee table.

That's where it hits him fully—naked with one hand curled around a coffee mug he found in his bedroom—what he’s just signed up for.

He goes to make sure he does, in fact, have lube and lets out a little sigh of relief when it's underneath a stack of underwear in his top drawer.

When's the last time he fucked a guy coming off Quells? Couple years ago maybe? Probably with Shane, and his dick wasn't… that.

He props one leg up on the edge of his bed frame and reaches behind himself, passes his fingertips over his hole, already sensitive, already wet even after cleaning up. Not heat levels of wet, obviously, but it’s been long enough, and he’s already excited enough that if the guy is even half decent…

More slick spreads under his hand and Jonny slides a fingertip inside, easy. 

He gives himself the space of two deep breaths to calm down, to settle the excited dips in his belly, before going back to the living room. His unfolded clothes get shoved into the laundry basket and he stacks the dirty dishes in the sink, acceptably out of sight. He makes piles of the scattered papers on the counter and kitchen table, gets his shoes out of the way in the hall, then puts on some clean sweats and a t-shirt and doesn’t bother with underwear. 

Just the tip, he thinks as he’s hanging his coat in the closet. He could open himself so slowly just on the tip of that cock. 

He’s doing a last quick sweep of the apartment when he hears a car pull up in front of his place. He takes a peek out from the front window and wrinkles his nose. Dude drives a Hummer. 

Jonny watches him get out and come up the driveway, hat on and a hoodie pulled over it. He walks with his head low and his shoulders turned in, face in shadows, which Jonny assumes is the point. Christ.

He seems so intent on not being seen, it feels like the right thing to do to not let him wait outside under the lights—Jonny doesn’t want him to be so fucking paranoid that he can’t get it up, rut or not. He _needs_ for this to happen. So he opens the door before the guy can ring the bell.

Hut2259403 looks up in surprise.

Jonny looks on in surprise.

They’re staring at each other in surprise.

Everyone is fucking surprised, but especially Jonny, because Patrick fucking Kane, NHL star, is standing on his front stoop and Jonny can smell the oncoming rut on him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the time it took to post this new chapter! Hopefully the length and sheer amount of porn will make up for the wait. Thank you so much for being patient and for reading! <3

"Hey," Kane says.

Jonny only realizes he's staring, motionless, when Kane puts some meaning behind the lift of his eyebrows.

"Hi," he answers, and moves to let him in.

He passes close, has to squeeze through with Jonny standing dumb against the front door, and the smell of him wafts out stronger with the shifting of his clothes.

It's something deep and hard, sticks fast to the back of Jonny's throat and wets him up right there, more than he already was.

A few feet inside and Kane— _Patrick_ Kane, what the fuck—turns to him, seems to size him up and then asks, casual-like, “You live with anyone else?” His eyes slide sideways into the hallway, then back to Jonny, shoulders still tensed.

Jonny frowns at him, makes himself hold Kane's gaze and feels his dick twitch. “No,” he says. “I would've told you on the phone."

Kane nods at this, presses his lips together and goes a little looser, reaches up to pull his hood down and reveals a crop of messy blond hair under a Bulls cap. Christ, it really fucking is him.

Even in less than a minute his smell is thicker, strong enough Jonny thinks if he stuck his tongue out he'd taste him—three months' worth of blocked ruts rising quick to the surface and spilled out in the space between them. It clings to Jonny’s skin like it knows he’s the omega about to take it.

"Is your name really Jonathan?"

Jonny blinks hard, like that might help clear his head, bring him back down to earth. "Yeah," he says. "Is your name really Hut-two-two-five—whatever?" The joke springs out before he can stop himself, and Kane smiles at it—dry, eyebrows furrowed, but the corner of his mouth does sweep upwards.

He takes a long breath and holds it, lips slightly parted, the moment stretched just long enough to dip into awkward before he says, "It's Patrick."

He knows. He knows Jonny knows, and he proves it further when he adds on, “Is that cool?”

Jonny wants to say no, actually, it’s not, some warning would’ve been nice, and by the way I swore off hockey players when I still was one. He doesn’t say any of that, though. He says, “Yeah, of course,” because he knows that Patrick is asking if _Jonny's_ cool, and he tries to look like he doesn’t give a shit that his night has shifted from three-month-rut to three-month-rut from someone he watched score a hat trick on his TV two days ago.

They fall into silence then, Jonny's heart pumping while he watches Patrick get out of his shoes, all slow about it like every little part of him isn't begging to bend Jonny over.

“You smell good,” Patrick says when he's straightened back up, low into the quiet.

Yeah, Jonny bets he does. He's still wetting while Patrick's scent gets even deeper as they stand there, doesn't realize he's pressed himself against the door until the cold of the wood seeps through his shirt, sinks into his heated skin and helps slow down his thoughts.

“You smell…insane,” he says, honest, shivery all over even though he’d bet money this isn’t about to go how he wanted it to, but fuck, he can’t help it. 

Patrick lets out a snort, adjusts his hat and then takes it off fully to turn it around. "I feel insane."

It makes Jonny want to ask him how much he's done this, how many Chicago area twinks have kept that dick a secret, but instead he bites his nails into his palms before stretching his fingers out, pushes himself away from the door. "Quells all worn off?"

There's an obvious bulge when Jonny flits his gaze down to Patrick's crotch, a nice little bump there underneath the slack in his dark sweatpants.

"Pretty close," Patrick says, and he looks pretty close—flushed, eyes hooded, his breath slow and even, purposefully controlled.

"Do you want to wait?" Jonny asks. His pulse jumps when Patrick takes a step in his direction and he smiles at himself, looks briefly to the ceiling. "I can get you a beer or something."

"I don't think it's gonna take that long."

No, it's definitely not. Jonny can feel it closing in, taking hold of him in turn, and he knows if he ran a hand into his pants right now he'd come back up _slick_ -slick. "We can go sit down for a minute," he says, feels the heat rise in his face when Patrick takes another step. "Or I could just show you my bedroom."

"Bedroom," Patrick says, eyes leveled at Jonny's face, lingering over his mouth before his own stretches into a tiny grin. "I'm sure your beer's good but it's just—starting to hurt." He has a little lisp, tongue all heavy, like the management of it's slipped away from him, and Jonny doesn't know why that adds anything to what he feels but it does—that and the fact that he can _smell_ it's starting to hurt makes him want to move the rest of the way forward, let Patrick get his hands on him.

"For sure, man.” His voice cracks and another strand of annoyance gets tangled up with the need in his gut. He doesn't know if he's glad or irritated that Patrick's hot. Who just shows up with no warning in the city they play for—hi I'm famous want to fuck? He's going to let him, but Jesus Christ. “I want to get you there, so...”—Patrick leans in closer, expectant, like he’s waiting for Jonny to say the word, and Jonny’s chest goes tight, breath caught—“you should kiss me.” 

Patrick’s on him before it's even completely left his mouth, lips dry on Jonny’s for the barest second before he opens up, presses himself in with a quiet hum.

He does taste like he smells, like he's dripping sex itself, and fuck if Jonny were in heat he'd have dropped to his knees. Has to keep himself from it even now, tips right back against the door, skin tingling when Patrick puts his hands soft into the dip in his back, draws him forward so lightly by his fingertips Jonny doesn't even realize he's arched until his dick's meeting pressure.

He must like buildup, because he lets it happen, whispers, "Move into me," and slips his touch down to Jonny's hips, encourages more rolling pressure and slots his thigh upwards, good friction that makes Jonny's breath catch again, head thunking back against the door.

Patrick hums at this too, a satisfied sound Jonny feels laid along his throat where Patrick’s sucking at the skin. “Get yours, come on,” he says, sticky and slurred. “Want you hard.”

Jonny almost laughs. Doesn’t think he could get much harder than he already is and it took Patrick fucking Kane all of five minutes to get him there.

“I can smell your slick.” Patrick’s voice has gone lower, lips dragged over Jonny’s neck and to his shoulder where he bites lightly, spit wetting his shirt. “Fuck, thought you weren't in heat.”

“M’not,” Jonny says, bleary-eyed, panting. He swallows and tastes Patrick in his throat—everywhere, thick thick thick, rolls his hips faster and bites his lip when Patrick’s hands tighten on him. “It’s just been a while.”

"Smells so good," Patrick says, the end of it dragged out into a little moan, and Jonny burns up, holds in a tremor.

“Believe me,” he says, and stops to kiss Patrick filthy and open, the sound of it loud in the empty house. “You’d know if I was.”

Patrick pulls back just enough to look at him, eyes blown and wild, chin slick already. “Want it in my mouth anyway,” he croaks, and hauls Jonny’s hips sharply against his thigh, sudden and rough, makes him cry out.

Heat or not, it doesn’t feel like it matters to Patrick at all. It feels like Jonny’s maybe two seconds away from being shoved around and knotted against his own front door and one second away from letting it happen, so he says, “Get me on my back,” and dips in for a quick slide of their tongues. “I’ll spread out for you.”

It’s crazy, absolutely fucking insane how much of an effort it seems to cost Patrick to register what Jonny’s saying. To answer, “Yeah,” and to let go of Jonny’s hips to tug at the bottom of his shirt instead. “Wanna see you.”

“Yeah.”

Patrick catches his eyes again, pulls Jonny to him. “Your pictures—fuck.” 

“Gonna be better than pictures, I hope.”

This gets him a smile, wide and dumb and almost boyish. Jonny’s only ever seen it through a screen and he’s not prepared for being on the receiving end of it, feels something inside him expand.

“Show it to me,” Patrick whispers, hands back to where they were, pulling Jonny off the door, and they still end up stopped halfway down the hall, then again just inside the bedroom, Jonny dragging Patrick forward by his hoodie pocket.

It's been long enough it feels almost novel—this hazy, gloppy arousal while he's still aware enough to see it written all over Patrick in a way he wouldn't notice if he were in heat. 

It's like being two people at once: the Jonny who wants kissed like this against his bedroom door frame, who wants shoved down and split open until he can't breathe, knotted until he's so puffed up and used his asshole won't feel right until he _is_ in heat. And he's also the Jonny who can feel Patrick slipping further into that specific space all by himself, who knows where the lube is and that he _needs_ to go get it, whose stomach lurches with an uncertain thrill when his hand closes around the fucking solid steel pipe Patrick's got in his pants.

There's a reason taking ruts without heat is only a thing every once in a while.

He pumps his hand in a couple slow strokes, but he lets go to grip into the elastic of Patrick's sweats when his fingers get too close to the prominence at the base of his dick. God. _God._ He knew Patrick Kane was an alpha, but he would never have fucking guessed he was carrying this around.

"Did you bring condoms?" he asks, throat dry, and has to ask a second time to get Patrick's attention, to get him to focus on something other than pulling Jonny's hips against him long enough to speak.

When he does lean back, mouth a blood-hot ruby red, he meets Jonny's eyes, holds them, and he's so blown wide fucking open Jonny can't believe they're still standing there.

"I said I wanted to eat you out." It comes out so cool, his expression tilted with the slightest hint of confusion, like he doesn't understand how Jonny could think they were moving onto anything else.

He wets again.

"Shit," he says, hands balled into fists in Patrick's waistband. "Fuck—I just—you seem like you're there, I don't want—"

They've already been apart too long for Patrick, because he leans back in, kisses Jonny again and then goes for his shirt, grabs at it until Jonny's helped him get it up and off. "I'm not," he says, slurring again. "I'm just close—I'm so close. You smell so fucking good, can't believe you're not in heat."

His hands flatten out on Jonny’s chest, fingers sure and demanding, eyes, too, taking the sight in. “I want it in my mouth,” he continues, fingertips pressing hard along the lines of Jonny’s pecs, thumbs catching rough on his nipples. "Want it in my fucking nose.”

Jonny’s body seizes with heat. A great swoop of it in his belly that makes his dick jump hard, has him leaning back against the doorway to catch himself and arch into Patrick’s hands where they’ve stopped over Jonny’s ribs. His eyes are feverish, bright even with his lids all heavy, and Jonny can’t look away. 

“Unless you don’t—” 

It costs him, Jonny can tell, even as high as he is on his imminent rut—it's a quiver in his whole body, some kind of supreme effort to take a moment and stop and ask, and Jonny’s already shaking his head, has to swallow twice, throat clicking, before he can say,

“No. I want it—I want it.”

And then it rushes back over them, and Patrick’s against him, quick and rough with pressure on Jonny’s dick again and his mouth on Jonny’s chin, a hoarse, “Get on the bed,” pushed between his teeth, tongue wet along Jonny's jawline.

It’s a demand but Patrick does nothing to help in the process, doesn’t give up any space or pull his hand away from between Jonny's legs, his body a solid line of heat, fucking impossible. Jonny has to wind his way out from around him himself and it takes all the steps between the door and his bedside table to feel like he isn’t about to drift off without Patrick’s weight. 

He picks up the lube and tosses it on top of the bed, looks back. “You can open me up while you’re down there,” he says, and smiles, a little shrug to his shoulders, all casual, like he doesn’t care if Patrick's back on him or not, like he can’t feel his pull from across the room. 

Like he isn’t absolutely fucking dying to know what getting rimmed by an alpha in this heavy a rut is like. Or what those fingers will feel like inside, stretching him out enough to take his cock. 

He shucks his sweatpants in one quick move, excited little jumps in his belly and then a sudden roll of nerves in between when his head catches up to him again—how often Patrick might do this. Jonny was at that Cup parade a couple years ago, remembers the scent mix of all those girls trailing after the team when they stopped into the bar Jonny was at later, and he knows he can't smell much different, naked and hard and one hundred percent willing. The fucking neighbors can probably smell it on him.

He breathes deep past the feeling, reaches behind himself—only habit—to check how wet he is, fingers a quick dip inside and sticky with slick after.

“Shit,” Patrick spits out, and then he’s there, impossibly fast, with a grip tight on Jonny’s wrist, tight enough Jonny can see the cords of muscle in his forearm, and it's the only thing that keeps him from stumbling back in alarm. He knows better than to bring slick into the open like this, not with an alpha about to tip into rut, not if he’s not willing to be thrown on the mattress and taken rough from behind. But Patrick doesn’t do that. Doesn’t do anything but stare at him, panting like crossing the room was a ten mile run, letting the solid wall of his scent fill all the space around them.

Neither one of them moves, frozen solid until Jonny takes the most careful breath, flexes where Patrick's holding him and parts his fingers, string of slick stretched between them.

"Sorry," he whispers, shaky, so hot with arousal he can't be doing anything but making it worse, and Patrick doesn't answer, just follows Jonny's fingers with his eyes, nostrils flared wide.

"You can if you want," Jonny goes on, still barely daring to move, but Patrick shakes his head, pinches his lips into a flat line.

"I'll forget the condom."

"What?"

"If I get you in my mouth right now I'll forget to put on a condom—just—fuck, I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind.”

Me too, Jonny thinks, a buzzing thought through the fog in his head, into the rushing sound of his own blood, and he leans forward to do it himself, sucks his own fingers in and licks them clean.

Patrick lets out a high, pained sound and drops Jonny's arm, surges forward and catches him in a new kiss, tongue curling in immediately.

“Fuck,” he says without pulling back, stubble rough along the already sensitive skin around Jonny's lips. “Holy fuck, I’m gonna eat you until you’re dry.”

It hits Jonny right in the chest, almost takes him out, and he grabs at Patrick’s shoulder, rolls in closer to him to hide it. “How—How do you want me?” 

“On your knees,” Patrick says, and bodily pushes Jonny away, hard, takes in a deep breath only then, like he could avoid the smell. “No. Yes. Yeah—to start.”

Jonny nods, so fucking turned on he feels weak. He takes a few wobbly steps backwards and then turns to climb onto the bed, presses his face into the mattress for a fast moment.

He knows how to make himself look good. How to arch his back and pop his ass up, shoulders low, knees wide enough so that when Patrick moves behind him he’ll be able to see a glimpse of his wet hole.

There’s a soft sound, the swish and slump of fabric hitting the floor, of crinkling foil, and when Jonny glances over his shoulder Patrick’s naked, a fist white knuckle-tight around his knot while he rolls the condom down, eyes locked on the drippy smear of pink Jonny knows is laid out for him.

His hat's still on, twisted a little crooked in the removal of his shirt, so charming and at odds with him at the same time Jonny has to look away, and then the first touch comes at his ankle, a swipe of fingertips, makes him jump even though it's almost delicate. It stays that way for a long few seconds, trailed over his leg hair, spreading goosebumps, but then Patrick grips sudden around Jonny's calf, drags him open a little wider.

He moves with it willingly, stretches himself just that tiny bit more and holds his breath. As many times as he's been looked at, it doesn't change what this feels like—to be still and posed and aware of every single part of his body. The tight pull in his inner thighs, the heavy drop of his cock, the warmth in the back of his neck and spread out all over his face.

"Come here," Patrick says, voice all hushed, and Jonny hears him move forward himself, feels his hands when he puts them to Jonny's hips and lifts him higher until his dick is right _there_ without warning, settled along his ass, burning hot and fucking fat enough Jonny holds his breath again, seizes his comforter in his fists and braces himself.

"Wait!" he gasps, instinct, but before he can protest further or even think about pulling away, Patrick's gone and his mouth is on him, so fast Jonny lets out an actual sob.

He goes slack to the mattress, lets Patrick hold him up around the thighs while his heart pounds like he just sprinted around his block.

"God—" he pants, humid into the blankets. "God, don't—"

"Needed to feel you," Patrick says, and he sounds drunk—his voice and the open, nasty sound of his mouth, his throaty moan when he scoops his tongue in against Jonny's asshole.

The Quells must be worn off completely by now. There's no other explanation for how heavy this rut feels over Jonny’s skin, the concentration of Patrick’s smell and need like a pressure on his body, prodding him to open, open, _open_ up for it. 

No other explanation for the way his mouth feels as he gives Jonny’s asshole a good suck, full and harsh in the pull. He barely moves away from Jonny’s skin, deep, noisy inhales through his nose that Jonny feels both warm and cool in the spit and slick there.

His thighs shake and Patrick’s knees press wide on the inside of Jonny's calves to keep him from closing up. Big hands flat over his ass spread him as far as his body will allow, to the edge of feeling like he’ll come apart, any discomfort soothed by the mouth on him.

When Patrick finally pulls back for a great big gulp of air, his mouth is immediately replaced by a finger, slipped in easy and deep, as if he can’t bear for Jonny to close up now that he’s started to open him.

“Fuck, you taste good,” he says, voice gravelly, and, “So goddamn pretty,” low enough it sounds for his benefit more than Jonny’s, but it still makes Jonny flush. He feels it all over his face and his neck, his shoulders, moan caught up in his throat and then wrenched out of him when Patrick dips low, sucks hard on his taint.

He expects it to stop there, with Patrick’s fingers a thick press inside him, and honestly it probably is close to enough. He’s so wet Patrick could slide three inside no problem.

The lube’s right in his face, tapping against his forehead with any shift of the mattress, so he takes it in hand, slides it down his body and gives it a little shove from between his legs, hard enough there’s no way Patrick misses it.

But he doesn’t pull his mouth away.

Instead it’s the fingers that go. Out—a slow drag all the way out—then another curl of his tongue, something almost sweet about the way he does it then, so soft Jonny frowns, tries to keep the whine trapped in his throat but fails when the fingers go right back in—not hard, not anything that feels like what he’d think a three-month rut might get him, but firm, _stuck,_ fucked in with purpose that feels like something outside of stretching, separate from it.

Fingers back out, tongue back in, out, fingers back in and curling, up up up _close_ , out, spreading just to touch, something that feels experimental, and Jonny can’t fucking move, limbs like cement blocks—like someone tied him up and then sunk him in water, left him there.

He _knows_ Patrick’s in full rut now, knows it without a doubt, and when Patrick does pull away, takes Jonny in insistent hands and tips him onto his back, it’s not to spread him this way, crack his thighs open and fuck in—it’s to suck his fucking dick.

“Oh _god,_ ” Jonny lets out, voice high enough it doesn’t sound like his own, and nothing else fucking feels like his own either. Not his burning skin, tender and open where Patrick’s mouth was, empty as fuck and hurt with wanting something there. Not his eyes, taking in the sight of an alpha this far gone—this obviously and entirely gone—with lips stretched around him, face messy, his scent all Jonny can taste and smell and think. He doesn’t know—can’t react other than to take Patrick’s head in his hands, hold him there where his hat meets his hair and ears, Jonny’s palms careful, his stomach all twisted up strange with confusion and something absolutely fucking molten, something deep. 

And then Patrick takes him deeper.

The groan that escapes Jonny’s lips is low this time, from below his ribcage, hips lifting and heart skipping when Patrick lets it happen. Takes it like he genuinely wants it, eyelids heavy in a slow blink. 

“I thought—” Jonny starts, cut short by the tight drag back up his dick, the hard suck at the head of it. 

Patrick looks up at him then, and even through the haze Jonny can tell he sees everything—the red splotchiness of his flush, his tight, hard nipples, his mouth, open and wet, where he knows he’s breathing too fast.

He swallows thickly, tries again. “Thought you’d want in.”

Patrick opens his mouth, gives Jonny’s dick a wide, heavy lick before pulling off, sitting back. He’s pink across the face, shiny all over it. 

“Not done tasting you,” he says, both breathy and raspy, with a complicated twist to his expression that Jonny can’t read, but he shivers when Patrick swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, chasing any of Jonny that might be there. And he’s unprepared when, without warning, Patrick presses his middle finger back in, fast with only Jonny’s slick to help the slide, the curl, until he finds the right spot to tap into. 

Jonny shouts, bucks off the bed at the shock of it, the zing of pleasure up his body, into his dick where he leaks a thin line onto his stomach.

Patrick dips in quick, catches as much of it as he can with his tongue. “This okay for now?” he says, and taps Jonny’s prostate again, lighter but enough to make him twitch, groan with how intense it feels. He's most sensitive there in heat, but it feels close to that, so alarmingly close to it Patrick’s knot might fucking kill him when it sits there.

But he nods, breathes, “Yeah, yeah,” with hands reaching for Patrick's head again, hips a steady lift off the bed with that pressure inside, with wanting his mouth back.

Patrick smiles a little at Jonny’s touch, lets it happen, allows the pleading lift of his hips before he leans his body weight back into position and starts to fuck his fingers in in earnest, just like that, and it still doesn’t feel like stretching.

It's like there's no goal except to watch, see what it does when there's one finger up against his prostate—two, three. Then no goal except to taste again, tongue spread out over the palm of his sloppy hand before he slips his fingers right back inside; mouth to the meat of Jonny's thigh, soft lips, soft teeth; mouth to the outside where he's hard at work, like all he wants is to breathe it in, be close; mouth to the sheen of precome smeared over Jonny's belly; mouth back to the head of Jonny's cock, and that slips into purposeful, his eyes settled on Jonny's face again, and all Jonny feels is _brightness._

He feels like he has to piss, that urge he associates with heat orgasms, but further off, tingling weird in his hands and feet. He can feel how ready Patrick is, can feel how much he's holding back, and something about it is horrible, absolutely fucking awful, like he himself is on that razor edge in sympathy, but in this moment— _right_ in this moment—it's the most astonishingly perfect he's ever felt. He wants to beg Patrick to get his dick in, almost—embarrassed that he hasn't yet, uncomfortable with all the need he can smell clashing up against how content Patrick looks letting him into his throat, but it's _perfect_.

"You're being so nice," Patrick says when he pulls off, voice a disaster, his fingers still pulling smooth at Jonny's foreskin. "No one ever lets me play this long."

It's the worst thing he could've said, makes Jonny want to claw at himself, and Patrick seems to know it, doesn't smile, doesn't tease, buries his face back into Jonny's thigh and presses something genuine there, more a nuzzle than a kiss, burns Jonny up more than anything else he's done.

"You smell like you're about to snap," Jonny croaks, just to escape the feeling eating him alive.

"It's fine," Patrick answers, but it's true, he's gotta be in literal pain, mouth full of slick, dick humping against sheets with an open omega right in his face, and he still keeps at it a little longer, pulls his fingers out and tilts Jonny's hips to lick him up some more. He does start searching for the lube though, like he needed Jonny to acknowledge his state before he'd act on it.

He tastes it when he finds it, pops the cap and darts his tongue against a drip of it and Jonny sits up and takes the bottle from him, takes Patrick's hand and drizzles it himself.

It draws another smile out of him, slow across Patrick's lips, and the air changes, halts and turns sharp, punches Jonny right across the face.

"Alright," Patrick whispers, moving to pull his knees out from under him “We can get to it."

Jonny's seen the pictures of Patrick's cock, he felt it under his hand, felt the thickness of it between his cheeks, watched him roll a condom on from across the room, and still none of that prepares him for the glimpse he gets before he’s tipped on his back.

The sight clings in his mind like toffee—sticky and sweet—sends his body into a roll of need, an instinctive response that makes him lift his legs up and wide, get hands behind his knees to pull towards his ears. He wets so hard for a second he thinks he’s actually _really_ pissed himself.

“What the fuck,” he says, and blinks hard at the ceiling, into the flooding heat.

“Holy shit,” Patrick says at the same time, and gets a flat hand to Jonny’s lower back to roll him up higher, bend him in two. Gets a good lick of him that way, a long drag from the bottom and up to behind Jonny’s balls.

“You gotta get in me.” Jonny tries not to sound as pleading as he feels. Fails. 

Patrick’s lubed up fingers slip back inside, his pinky joining this time. A solid pump of them, hard, nothing careful, but still working at stretching him, working at stretching time. 

“Sorry,” Patrick says and goes for another mouthful of Jonny beside his hand, tongue dipping in for an almost delicate stroke where he’s kept open. “Sorry,” he says again, with a soft bite at Jonny’s ass, like he can read Jonny’s mind. “Just don’t know when I’ll have this again.”

It hits Jonny hard in a totally different way. Makes him hold his legs up tighter, spread them wider, higher, on the verge of telling Patrick to take whatever time he needs, but before he can Patrick’s there. Tall on his knees, scooted in close, and then closer still when he grabs Jonny where he’s bent and gives him a hard tug to get him where he needs him. Where he can line up easy, take his dick in one hand and rub it over Jonny’s hole, drizzle some more lube over both of them. 

The head of his cock slips in between one breath and the next. A pressure Jonny feels with no pain behind it—except for the wave of hurt rolling off the control Patrick’s exerting on himself. A smell turned biting and sweet, almost cloying. 

Jonny swallows. His fingers slip in his sweat. “How slow can you make it?” he says, his voice cracking.

Patrick looks up, eyes round with surprise or—concern, then looks back down at his dick, at Jonny’s hole held open by the head and nothing else. “Do you need me to be?” 

“Do you?” Jonny replies.

He doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be in answer, but Patrick starts to slide forward without a word, so slowly that every ounce of focus Jonny has centers there, gathers right in that fill-me-up ache and seems to expand outwards the deeper Patrick gets, not quite pleasure—an acute satisfaction. 

He stops before his knot’s touching, holds himself still, lets Jonny settle around him, and it doesn’t hurt like this, not when he’s this turned on, but shit, it could. It could completely fuck him up.

“Do _you_?” Patrick says, and his restraint plucks at Jonny’s attention again, draws his eyes to Patrick’s face. He leans in while Jonny's looking, enough that his knot does connect, opens his hole just a little wider and touches him with that heat, another expanding wave of satisfaction. “I wanna give you what you want," he whispers into the warmth of Jonny's parted lips. "If you're gonna take my dick like this without a heat you've gotta say it." And even through the honey sweetness of asking, waiting, it still somehow sounds like it's something for Patrick. Even the restraint feels that way, smells that way, like Patrick's getting off on it. Jonny doesn't know what to do with that, feels choked and strange and inspected in a way he couldn't possibly have guessed at. He wants _fucked,_ and he wants to stay like this, quiet, let Patrick edge himself or whatever the fuck he's doing.

But he sits up a little, moves himself back with a hand to Patrick's chest so that his dick glides back out, too fast so the sensation of it makes Jonny full-body shiver in the short space between that and flipping back onto his knees. "I put the ad up," he says, and arches nice, chest dipped down low. "Want you to take it."

When he looks over his shoulder Patrick's face has sharpened, and his scent shifts one more time. Jonny knows that smell, even if the specifics are new. He knows _alphas_ , and it doesn’t matter if the alpha is Patrick Kane, hotshot hockey player with insane discipline. At the end of the day, that knot wants in. 

“I want you to fuck me,” he says out loud, in case it wasn’t clear, and when Patrick only stares at him, “I want your rut.”

He wants tied, wants the hard punch on his prostate. They’ve somehow tipped so far into this—the hot, sensitive space Jonny drops into when he’s stuck on an alpha’s knot—he’s vibrating inside his skin.

He can’t remember if he’s ever had to ask like this, beg a fucking rutting alpha for his dick, barely knows what to do with himself when even then Patrick shuffles in smooth behind him, lines up and rubs over his hole in a firm circle.

"You're fucking ruthless, man," Jonny croaks, and the laugh Patrick lets out sounds _grieved._

"I'm not trying—" he says, and gives Jonny the head of his cock like before, puts one hand to the space where Jonny’s thigh hinges into his hip and slides him down a little, just enough to send Jonny’s heart off convulsing. “Get ready,” he whispers, tight, stressed. “Shit, get ready.” And he fucks in without pause, _quick,_ grunts when his knot bumps up against Jonny’s asshole. 

"Yeah," Jonny groans, dragged out of him, and he braces himself for the rhythm, grips into his own hair when Patrick takes both hips.

He's prepared for it and still can't find the space to breathe, to settle himself when Patrick gets up onto the balls of his feet and just fucking gives it to him, rough—five, six times, like he's finally snapped.

Jonny goes limp right away, shoulders to the bed again, face into the pillows, and something feels snapped inside him too, liquid hot in his limbs. It turns into a shout when Patrick stills suddenly, presses his knot to Jonny's rim to give him that burning heat, fat and hard, insistent like he wants Jonny to know what’s coming.

Even like this Patrick's fucking maddening, throws Jonny for another loop when he leans forward over Jonny's back, kisses his spine and snakes a hand under him for his cock. He lets out a deep, satisfied sound when he finds it stiff, like somehow he’d been worried it wouldn’t be. 

“Oh god—god—” Jonny gasps, voice so strangled he barely gets anything out. He’s nothing but—light. Nothing but air. His entire body suspended in a strange numbness before every sensation catches up with him at once, burns through him.

He feels Patrick pick up his thrusting like white noise in his head, buzzing static everywhere, a shrill ringing with every press of Patrick’s knot and he’s so thick, god he’s so fucking thick the strain of him inside makes Jonny want to crawl away up the bed. He knows this part— _this_ he's done before, if not often. The reason Wicks tells him he's fucking insane on their lunch breaks. But the hand on his dick makes him want to throw himself back, bounce his hole on Patrick's cock until neither of them can walk, and that's usually further along in the process.

Patrick makes more hurt sounds when Jonny does bounce himself back, and then it changes into—something else, something deeper that knuckles into Jonny's need, plays into exactly what he wants out of this, and fuck he can feel the frothy mess between them, slick and lube, might blush at how wet he is without heat if he had the blood to spare for his face. It triggers something in Patrick, makes him thrust impossibly harder and Jonny meets him until he can't think, can barely even hear, his eyes squeezed shut.

Telling him to stop is right there inside his mouth, riding the tip of his tongue. He’s not sure what he would mean by it—a pause in Patrick taking him like a rag doll, begging him to let go of his dick so he doesn't fucking come, but he keeps the words in his throat, teeth clenched around them while Patrick fucks in and in and _in,_ and suddenly there's nothing.

Jonny hunches himself up involuntarily against the emptiness, the rush of cold against his skin, but it's only for a second, only one bare moment before Patrick's fucking mouth is back, deep, unhurried licks where Jonny knows he's a disaster and it makes him want to crawl up the bed even more.

"What—" he says, face buried against an arm, and Patrick only adjusts Jonny's hips like he's making him more comfortable to get to, offers another lick.

"I can smell you," he says, and then, like that's not quite right, "I can taste that you're sore."

Holy—

He can’t catch it—the whine that leaves him. It comes from down deep but gets so high in the end he's almost ashamed of it. A long sound barely muffled by the pillow he turns his face into, embarrassment prickling at his skin when he presses himself onto Patrick’s tongue for that soothing lick.

Because he is. He is sore. 

Not just there but all over, ache in his muscles, ache in the bruising of taking more than he should or even really can, trying to stretch enough for it to fit.

He takes a deep breath. Holds it. Exhales. Squirms into the shift in Patrick’s own smell, rounded out somehow, but no less near, each pass of his tongue like a physical shushing. Like he’s a wounded animal about to bolt. 

He doesn’t recoil at the thought because it feels nice. Feels so good, that soft wetness into the heat of him, where he feels most raw. And Patrick keeps his fingers on Jonny’s dick, light but sure, keeps him hard while he sucks on his hole, careful and lulling like it has no right to be this far into the game. It hooks Jonny inside, in a tender spot he’d normally guard, and he falls completely to the bed, flat on his stomach only to catch himself immediately, arch right back into it—has to escape the emptiness even if it lasts for a second. He’s so light, it feels easy.

“You’re crazy,” Patrick says behind him, both hands on Jonny’s cheeks, holding him open for another kiss there at his centre. “Absolutely fucking insane.”

Jonny twists his head enough to look past his own shoulder, catches Patrick’s eyes, black as they've been all night. As if he's got any room to call Jonny insane.

“I like it,” he says simply, like he doesn't sound drugged, like he's not gaping and nowhere close to done.

"Clearly," Patrick answers, and licks one more time, deliberate along the leaking proof of Jonny liking it.

He loses track after that—the number of times Patrick fucks into him and then pulls out to go back to his knees. It can’t be as many as it feels, but even the once seems far away mystifying, something Jonny dreamed up right until it’s happening again.

Patrick’s scent rolls and softens and spikes and it's all Jonny can fully grasp at, the only thing that makes any of it real. He’s not dreaming that up—that desperation. That’s fully outside of him, all Patrick, the room so heavy with it it makes Jonny feel drunk.

The stretch doesn’t go away, the dull hurt, not with the press of Patrick’s knot on every deep thrust, even getting his mouth in between, but it’s _good._ Knocks Jonny so far out of his head Patrick’s voice comes from a distance even right in his ear, all splayed across Jonny’s back, hips pumping at a slower pace.

“You smell like you’re coming,” he whispers without stopping, mouth open and hot to Jonny’s skin, and then he tips them both onto their sides, drags Jonny’s leg up and makes him hook an arm around it. “But you’re not. Your dick’s just that wet.” And it rushes into him with the words, how edged Jonny feels, so tightened up and bright with pleasure it’s almost like there’s nothing between his legs at all, just the stretch and the suspended sharpness of an orgasm just out of reach.

“Fuck,” Patrick whispers when he slips a hand down Jonny’s stomach and taps a couple fingers—bare and precise—to the length of Jonny’s cock.

“I’m gonna blow when you knot me,” Jonny says, too low and weirdly matter of fact for a whine, his breath coming fast. He swallows, pulls his leg up higher to avoid the way his body wants to squirm. “As soon as it’s in—I know it—I know it—”

“What are you doing taking a rut,” Patrick says, his breath speeding up to match Jonny’s. “You’re gonna blow on the first tie and then what? Then what? Gonna let me fuck you all night with your dick all soft?”

“Christ,” Jonny gasps, and everything gets brighter, hotter. He feels like his chest and shoulders and face are all on fire, his heart pounding.

It feels like Patrick tries to slip back into that discipline, keep his pace steady, but he’s close too and the most he manages is remembering to prop Jonny’s hips up with a couple frantically grasped pillows when he shifts them again, puts Jonny on his back.

It brings them closer together, then closer still when Patrick leans up, kisses Jonny fast and then buries his face, warm and humid at the join of Jonny's neck and shoulder.

Something about the angle makes him feel bigger this way, or maybe it's that his knot doesn't seem to retreat at all anymore, just presses up against Jonny's asshole while Patrick grinds in, and it's so hard to keep his legs up when all he wants is to sink into the sensation, let himself ride that edge of too much.

"Do it," he breathes against Patrick's hair, face turned into him. "God, please do it."

The sound of Patrick's breathing turns rougher, half voiced, and he gets fucking bigger, pressed closer, closer, so fucking _close._

Jonny closes his eyes and tilts his head back, hands squeezing hard at the bends of his knees while he makes himself as loose as he can, and as ready as he is he's not ready for the slick fingers he feels at his hole, easy and exploratory, lubed up somehow.

"You're so open," Patrick breathes, lifts himself to Jonny's mouth again. "Holy shit you're so fucking open."

And then it happens. Patrick slips fully inside with a little pop of movement, fast, unceremonious, like he didn't entirely mean for it, and Jonny comes exactly like he said he would. 

It’s like he wanted: a violent punch on his prostate. Sudden and surprising even knowing it was coming. Except, unlike a punch, it stays there—hard, _constant_ pressure, unrelenting and immovable, so fucking hot it feels like being seared. The shock of it makes him clench down, makes him feel fucking damaged there.

Everything happens all at once.

He shoots over his stomach—feels that it’s a lot—arches his back with the hit, with a shout and white heat in his head, behind his eyes, a fast burning spread everywhere else. And he jerks to one side, the other, a brutal twist, a struggle like he can somehow escape it, find some cold, some space to breathe.

Part of him wants to tell Patrick to get out of him, make it stop, and he almost tips into that moment, where it’s too much and there’s no pleasure left, but Patrick’s hands are there, strong and tight on his upper arms, bearing down on him with his weight to stop him from moving. Stop him from squirming so much it rubs him raw inside.

Jonny gasps. Moans. Stills into the feel of it and sinks back into good. 

“You’re not done yet,” Patrick says, mouth slack at the corner of Jonny’s, slurry wet. “I can feel it.”

And he’s right. Grinds his hips only slightly, and Jonny’s spurting again—not a second orgasm but more of it, being milked out of him on the biggest tie he’s ever felt. 

He sobs—actually sobs—an ugly, wet noise, arches his neck, hands grabbing fast at Patrick’s head, into his hair, legs fallen open and useless to the bed before crossing under Patrick’s ass.

He hasn’t come. Jonny can smell it. Fucking how?

“Get there—god— _fuck,_ get there—” he gasps, drags Patrick’s mouth to his. “I can't—you’re killing me.”

The sheer force of his restraint—the pain of it—is a suffocating note this close to him. He’s shaking with it, face screwed up in effort, and Jonny doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. Doesn’t know what else to do but bear down on him and clench as tight as he can, the hump of his knot wringing some last drops out of him. And Patrick whimpers, forehead pressed to Jonny’s collarbones like that’s all he was waiting for. 

He smells it more than feels it, the release, like a window opening wide in a sauna. It lifts suddenly and clears out with Patrick's loud groan, with the rough push of his body like he could somehow get deeper, get Jonny more open.

It makes Jonny tense his legs up, hiss between his teeth until Patrick goes heavy and loose on top of him, fully tied. He feels so big—feels _too big_ —so firm and relentless inside him Jonny knows it's not gonna last as long as Patrick will need it to, but he pulls him in as close as he can, keeps his ass as tight on him as he can make it while he smooths his hands through Patrick's hair, knocks his hat off and accepts the kiss Patrick lays on him when he lifts his head.

"I'll have to go again," he says against the side of Jonny's mouth, voice sleepy slow and thick, and Jonny nods against him, lets out a quiet, "Ah!" when Patrick shifts his hips.

"I know," he whispers. He'd know regardless, it's not his first time, but even if he didn't the scent would give it away, all calm before the storm.

"How long can you keep my knot?"

New warmth spreads through Jonny's blood with the words, even if he knows he won't get hard again until the end if he's lucky. "Maybe a couple more minutes," he says. "I'll give you my hand”

“S’okay,” Patrick says. “Brought my ring.”

Jonny presses up into Patrick with a quiet, happy moan. “I wanna put it on you.”

“Hot.”

They laugh a little, low and dumb until the soft shake of their bodies causes more friction and Jonny wraps his arms tighter around Patrick to keep him still for a moment, but allows him to turn his head enough and find his mouth. 

Patrick kisses him again, hums a little, orgasm stupid. "I'll lick you out again," he says, and Jonny bites his lip, closes his eyes, lets his head fall back into the pillows.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait (again). Thank you for your patience and for reading! Hope you enjoy!

Patrick’s gone in the morning, in body if not in scent, and Jonny’s first thought is _I am an idiot._

He pokes a toe at one of the condoms splatted on his bedroom floor and cringes with the kind of post nut clarity he hasn't experienced since dial-up porn on the family computer.

_Four._ There are four condoms.

He feels cored out, empty in a way that'd make him nervous if his dick wasn't into it, but even standing there with tender thighs and a blooming ache in his lower back, it gives a little spark of interest—feeble, but present.

"Fuck off," he whispers at it, because his throat hurts a little too.

It's cold in the house, not exactly early, but early enough the sun seems weak where it lines Jonny's blinds, dull January grey. An NHL player showed up at his house last night, knotted him four times, and dipped before noon.

Patrick Kane is a fucking freak.

Jonny shuffles out into the hallway like one of his elderly patients, one hand steadied against the wall on his way to the bathroom, and once inside he leans in against the sink, stares at his face in the mirror and tries to figure out what the hell he was thinking. He's still a little flushed, still morning-after tacky, which he can tell when he props a foot up and carefully circles his hips, feels the tiny spread of his asscheeks, the sensitivity centered in that heat.

He knows it's stupid—knew it was stupid last night—but the gratification hits bone-deep, leaks into him like Kane's still right there, maybe whispering for Jonny to lift a little higher, filling the room up with that scent, and it actually is like that. It _smells_ like he's there. Jonny'll have to strip his mattress before anything seeps in.

He closes his eyes, pulls in a slow, quiet breath and straightens up. He's fucking starving, and he could go for a bath, and he needs coffee to even start thinking about any of it. His head's clouded up like he could slip right back into the night, let himself tip into that last tie, so sore he could only take Patrick's knot for a minute, but Patrick was so satisfied, smelled so fucking good coming down.

It's hard to recall other guys when there's one in your nose, but Jonny smiles as he pushes away, laughs a little at his reflection, and still thinks it's possible Patrick's roofed himself into his top three, which is just—annoying. It's annoying that it was that good, that his scent's this good even this far away from Jonny's bed.

At least he left. That feels like more the speed Jonny would've guessed, because he's not sure what he would've done if he'd woken up to needy post-rut alpha when he can still barely wrap his head around who—

He stops dead in the archway of his living room.

Patrick looks up from his phone where he's sitting on the couch, his hair a mess, hoodie scrunched into his lap. "Hey, sorry," he says, voice hoarse, thick with first-time use.

"What," Jonny says.

"Can I use your shower?"

Well. It explains the strength of the lingering smell. 

It sharpens a little just then. Natural, and practically imperceptible under any other circumstances, except for the fact that Jonny’s been soaking in it for the past twelve-plus hours.

And that’s how he remembers he’s naked. 

He knows he’s standing weird. A slight hunch forward, bowlegged like a cartoon cowboy, with his cock spent and soft between his legs. It’s not like Patrick hasn’t seen all of it, not like Jonny’s really self-conscious about his body, but it obviously hits different the morning after, always, in daylight, with no rut or heat in the way and it’s just two strangers who willingly exchanged body fluids. Turns out, it also hits different when the stranger in question is a celebrity. Christ.

He shuffles his feet to pull his thighs in, inner muscles protesting with acute ache, and the movement seems to hook Patrick’s full awareness, focus the understanding of what he’s looking at.

It’s quick. Just a quick scan of his eyes before he looks to the side at the picture frame to Jonny’s right, but Jonny knows he took in everything. He’s seen Patrick Kane play hockey, a quick look is all he needs. And it’s all Jonny needs too, to warm up inside at the brief attention. 

He swallows. “Thought—” His voice cracks and he clears his throat. “Thought you were gone,” he finishes, an explanation but not an apology for walking naked into his own living room. 

Patrick huffs a breath out, runs a hand through his hair. “I was gonna head out,” he says. His eyes flit to Jonny and away, and then he tips himself back against the couch with another loud exhale, finds Jonny’s face and looks at him this time. “It was later than I thought, and I—” One hand gestures vaguely at himself, the other at the outside. 

Jonny nods, gaze turning to his front window. The sheer curtains are closed but they let in enough weak light to see the shadows of cars passing by, of someone walking down the street. 

It’s cold out but they can hear the children from across the street playing, snowball fight maybe, from the number of excited high-pitched cries. There are probably neighbours clearing out their driveways and parents walking their kids. Any number of them could recognize Patrick, and all of them would know the stench clinging to him, strong enough there'd be no denying what happened. 

“You smell like me,” Patrick says, soft and quiet, prodding Jonny to look back at him, quick enough to catch the heaviness of his eyelids on the strong inhale he takes, and the way he sucks in his bottom lip when he lets it out through his nose. Jonny’s heartbeat picks up. Then Patrick’s blinking hard and the drugged-up look is gone as quick as it came. He clears his throat, sits forward again. “If I smell like you the way you smell like me, I can’t—” he says, clearer, with another wave of his hand towards the door.

Jonny shifts his weight from one leg to the other, feels like he’s trying to dodge something—the awkward moment, the situation entirely. It makes his dick jiggle and he has to resist the impulse to reach out and cup himself.

“‘Course,” he says, pleased at the way it comes out super chill. This is totally a super chill development. “Gonna need one too, but you can go first.”

He turns around and walks back the way he came, not waiting for Patrick to get up and follow, past the bathroom and back into his bedroom to grab a pair of clean sweats. When he comes back out, Patrick’s waiting by the bathroom door, leaning on the wall with his hoodie still clutched in his hands.

He waits as Jonny grabs a towel and washcloth from the cupboard just inside and places them on the counter. 

“Soap and shampoo and all that are in the shower,” he says. “Take whatever you need and,”—He opens the cabinet under the sink and reaches for a half-empty bottle, places it beside the towel—“this should help too.”

Patrick looks at the bottle of generic alpha neutralizer for what feels like a long moment, but to his credit, nothing shows on his face. “Thanks,” he says.

“Don’t think it’ll be enough to neutralize all of it, you might need a couple other showers for that, but it should get you out the door.”

Enough to mean ‘I just spent brunch at my (male omega) friend’s house’ without brunch coming off as code for ‘I knotted ass all night.’

“Yeah, that should work,” Patrick says.

He's a little overwhelming this close—his smell, but also his face in the light of day without much clouding Jonny's thoughts. Intense eyes and a pretty mouth that Jonny’s not sure isn’t still plumped up from last night.

“I’ll get outta your way,” Jonny says after what feels like too long a moment spent looking, and when he goes to duck around Patrick he’s not entirely surprised when Patrick reaches out and grips his forearm. 

It’s not very fast, not hard, feels almost casual except for how the energy in the room shifts, maybe imperceptible if Jonny weren't contributing to it himself.

His stomach dips with embarrassment and he bites down on a self deprecating smile, shakes his head. “I’m not trying—“ he starts. 

“No,” Patrick agrees. “I’m not either.” But he doesn’t let go, only loosens his hold and curls his fingertips into the tiniest strokes along Jonny’s skin.

Some people don’t like the morning after routine. Jonny’s been with both kinds of guys—some that have wanted to lie on top of him all fucking day, some that have actively cringed from it, but he can’t remember ever wanting so badly to drag one back to bed for something other than sex.

Patrick doesn’t make it any easier when he leans in closer, lets his forehead bump up against Jonny’s. “You still smell really good,” he says.

“I haven’t had a shower yet.”

Patrick shakes his head, Jonny can feel the rolling movement of it where they’re touching. “I think you just smell good on your own.”

Jonny doesn’t know what to say to that, swallows and just keeps completely still, and he feels it when everything shifts again, when Patrick blinks and pulls away, turns his back and takes the neutralizer off the sink to put it into the shower. 

Jonny leaves before Patrick has time to turn around or start undressing. Before suggesting something stupid like hey let’s kill two birds with one stone and shower together. Or before Patrick does. He closes the door behind him, tips back but catches himself just as he’s about to lean into it with enough force to make it rattle in the frame, legs still weak and tired and achy. 

In the bedroom, he strips his mattress and throws the sheets in the washing machine, tosses in a neutralizing pod with the detergent and starts the cycle… then opens the washer again and tosses in a second pod. 

The living room and kitchen are still thick with Patrick’s smell, so Jonny grabs the bottle of neutralizing freshener under the sink and starts spraying liberally in both rooms, then down the hallway, to his bedroom, walking into the spray a couple times because it can’t hurt.

Some guys in the past have taken offense when he’s done this before they leave. Jonny would usually wait, but, if what happened in the bathroom is any indication, he’s got the feeling that it’ll be good for the both of them if their noses aren’t assaulted by their mixed smells when Patrick comes out. Jonny absolutely can’t go for round five, not sure he even wants to, and he doesn’t like playing into the always-willing omega role. 

His travel-sized neutralizer is still in his gym bag when he goes looking. 

He’s gentle, careful with himself as he reaches back into his pants to rub some over his hole, all dried up there but still messy—remnants of lube and slick and spit, Patrick’s scent. And still it hurts. 

The next part’s worse and his least favorite, but has to be done, hiss between his teeth and jaw clenched tight as he braces himself against the breakfast counter to slip a fingertip inside and block the scent properly. It stings, kind of burns, almost like rubbing alcohol on a wound. 

He’s an idiot.

Even through that, the memory of Patrick’s finger doing the same flashes in his mind, quick in the press but thicker, better, a completely different kind of ache. He’s not about to start leaking from just the thought of it, not with how he feels right now, sore all over and stoppered with neutralizer, but his core floods with heat all the same.

A fucking idiot. A real clown. 

Coffee’s brewing and he’s got everything needed for an omelet out on the counter when he stops, knife in hand, unsure if Patrick likes eggs, or even wants to eat. Unsure of what he _can_ eat. Some dudes really don’t like playing at domesticity. Easier to play it cool and wait, to sink in his sofa and turn on the TV.

… Just in time to see Patrick Kane score an OT winner on ESPN in HD beauty. This shit's never even _on_ ESPN. 

“Oh, fuck off,” Jonny says, and despite himself he sits there and watches highlights, one hand on the remote and an ear pricked towards the sound of running water.

He's flipping through channels when Patrick finally does come out though, and Jonny smells him more than he hears the entrance, that scent cutting through any efforts he made getting rid of it.

It doesn't make any sense being that strong with Patrick standing there in a towel, hair dripping onto his bare shoulders—until Jonny zeros in on the clothes gripped in Patrick's fist, the same he came in wearing last night.

He tips his head back and lets out a heavy sigh, pecs rising and falling with the sound. "Is there any way I can throw this stuff in the wash?"

The wash. Currently beating the fuck out of Jonny's bedding, he can faintly hear it on the spin cycle. "I threw my sheets in a little bit ago," he says, and clenches his teeth together in an apologetic grimace.

"Shit." The look Patrick gives him is pure anxiety, enough Jonny's thoughts take a quick skip down the road to wondering if there's a girlfriend at home or something— _does_ Patrick Kane have a girlfriend? He can't remember if he's ever known.

"It's cool if you want to wait," he says. "I can make breakfast or whatever. No plans." And it's true—he made the mistake of taking rut on a work day one time only.

Patrick sighs again, looks to the front door like he's weighing his options, and looks back. "I didn't mean to have to stay here."

That much is obvious, even if Patrick was caught up on him in the bathroom. Right now he looks like he wants to run. "Yeah," Jonny says. "I believe you."

"I was, like—half out of it getting here last night, I'm not looking for any kind of—"

"Seriously," Jonny stops him. "You really don't have to explain it."

"I'm just saying—"

"Really."

Patrick lets out a last sigh, a slow, slow exhale, drops his arms more fully to his sides. "I'm not trying to be a dick."

"It's fine."

"Really."

"Holy shit, man. Do you want eggs?"

Patrick blinks at him for a moment, then his expression morphs into one trying to fight back a smile, his eyebrows furrowed. "I guess."

"You guess," Jonny says, amused, even with the thrill of nervous adrenaline making itself known in his arms and legs. He pushes himself up to his feet and doesn't let any of the discomfort he feels show on his face while he moves past Patrick for the kitchen.

"I hid once," he calls from the fridge, eggs back in hand.

It takes a second, but Patrick appears in the doorway, dirty clothes abandoned and his towel more secure around his waist. Jonny's really going to have to stand here and talk to him like his chest isn't distracting.

"What?"

"I hid once," Jonny repeats, and reaches for the knife and bell pepper he abandoned. "This guy I knew from college—we hooked up and he blew rut harder than I was expecting, and I knew he was one of those alphas who want to, like, pet you all day after, and he kept calling me honey, so we went twice and I got out of bed and crouched behind his kitchen table like he couldn't smell me in there."

Patrick leans one shoulder against the wall, mouth quirked while his eyes follow Jonny's slicing. "It was his house?"

"It was his house."

"That's pretty cold."

"Don't level guilt here, I'm trying to commiserate with you wanting to get the fuck out."

Patrick snorts and rolls his eyes, and his mood seems successfully shifted, eased, even if it's just a little. "It's not like that."

Jonny looks up, lifts an eyebrow, and after a pointed bit of staring Patrick lifts one in return, lets his mouth widen out into a fuller smile.

"This how you fish for compliments from all the boys?"

At that Jonny's heart picks up speed and he breaks their gaze to swipe the diced peppers off the cutting board, teeth biting into his own grin. "I don't need to fish," he says, and rolls a tomato closer.

"Ooh." Patrick's voice has gone lazy, low and pleasantly entertained. "You don't think so?"

"Nope, I think I'm real good there, actually." 

Patrick watching suddenly feels like a physical weight draped over Jonny's skin—nothing overbearing, mostly nice, really, but pressing in on him all the same.

"Never called anyone honey?"

Jonny laughs at him, shakes his head. "Can't say I have."

"What do you like to call people?" Patrick says, and when Jonny looks back up at him he's still smiling with those sleepy-shaped eyes, wet hair starting to frizz up a little around his ears.

"What do you like to be called?"

Patrick hums a laugh from somewhere deep, looks down and smooths a distracted hand across his stomach. "This is why I wanted to leave," he says. "I'm fucking tired."

" _You're_ tired?" Jonny shoots back without heat, but he instantly regrets it when Patrick's face sobers.

They're quiet for a short moment until Patrick asks, "You are—good—right?"

Jonny instinctively clenches his ass and then has to bite on the inside of his mouth to keep the wince off his face, heat spiking in his veins again. He spent most of the night so filled up he still feels the emptiness like a loss, even through the ache, and it’s harder to ignore now, with Patrick’s dick just… there, loose under only a towel. He has a brief thought for one of his plugs, wonders briefly if he could excuse himself to get it, before he remembers even his fingertip was too much. 

He exhales slowly and quietly, controlled, and focuses on his tomato while he says, “I’m not gonna lie and say I’m not feeling it this morning, but yeah. I’m good.” 

More silence stretches then, filled with the chopping sound of his knife, and he can _feel_ Patrick’s eyes on him again, less nice and more heated, watchful, he’s not sure, but he has to resist the urge to squirm like he’s lying when he’s not. 

“Thanks,” he adds, a little too late, hyper-conscious of every twitch of his body. He pulls a face.

Patrick snorts softly beside him. “Okay,” he says, and Jonny glances sideways, watches as Patrick picks at the few hairs below his navel like he’d pick at lint on a shirt. 

“Whole eggs or just whites?” Jonny asks, too obvious—too obvious in his efforts to barrel past this awkwardness. And past how he suddenly wants to get on his knees, tug on Patrick’s towel and take his cock into his mouth. _He_ didn’t get to do that last night. 

“Whole’s fine,” Patrick says, moving to sit on the stool across from Jonny, so that now nipples are in his field of vision—pink and hard. Jonny didn’t get them into his mouth when he had the chance and now he has regrets. 

He _very_ carefully finishes slicing the onion. 

“I didn’t—” Patrick starts, swipes a hand over his chest, up to his shoulder and Jonny stares very hard at the food. “I didn’t think it would be—this bad. I wouldn’t—”

“It was good,” Jonny cuts him off. Wants out of whatever this is, away from feeling like he could just drop his pants any second and to hell with the giant bruise his prostate has become. He feels the warmth of a blush at the back of his neck, into his throat. Makes himself look up anyway, catch Patrick’s eyes to say, “I liked it.” His whole body is a reminder of how much he did. “It was…”

“Intense.”

“Yeah.”

“But.”

“Good.” Really fucking good. Actually. Frustratingly. 

Patrick lets out a long breath between his teeth, and then flashes a grin, devastating in a way it has no right to be. “Cool,” he says, and Jonny rolls his eyes. 

“Now who’s fishing?” 

The grin widens and Jonny has to look away again, drops carefully into a crouch to grab a pan and takes the moment out of view to get himself together.

“You allowed to have bacon?” he asks when he stands back up.

There’s a pause before Patrick says, “Sure,” and when Jonny meets his eyes again his face has shifted a little, moved into something rueful and knowing.

Jonny doesn't feel bad about putting it out in the open, just turns to the fridge one last time and lets Patrick look at him, which he continues to do through Jonny taking out another pan and peeling half the pack of bacon into it.

He watches while all of the strips are evenly spaced, elbows on the bar, mouth pressed into his clasped hands, and when he finally starts it's only, "So."

"I'm not gonna tell anyone," Jonny says.

Patrick opens his mouth, but then waits until Jonny's gotten a bowl and cracked the first egg into it. "That's not something—"

"You don't have to explain that either." Jonny glances over his shoulder, cracks another egg. "My phone's there—you can delete those pictures if you want. I'll let you do it yourself."

Patrick does turn his head to look at Jonny's phone lying face down a few inches from him, reaches out and spins it in a slow circle with one finger.

"Seriously."

One more circle and then, "It's fine."

Jonny lets out a quiet huff, cracks one more egg and then sticks a fork in them with a furious wrist. "Can't leave here without a shower and clean clothes but you'll let a stranger hang onto your dick."

"Something to remember me by," Patrick says, and the overwhelming desire to crawl over to him and open that towel up washes through Jonny's entire body with a vengeance.

Instead, he smiles and shakes his head, pours the eggs into the second pan.

He wouldn't have guessed at this charm, but he's half disgusted with himself the entire time they're eating—with how much he keeps wanting to plant himself in Patrick's lap at every smartass little quip he makes, drag him off to the bedroom or even just to the couch to see if Patrick _wants_ that needy alpha post-rut closeness.

It's not even enough to rid himself of the feeling when he takes a break from Patrick to go throw his clothes in, not enough when Jonny finally gets in the shower himself and can't smell any of Patrick at all through the steam and his own neutralizer, face tilted back to let the water splash over his neck and chest.

Patrick's still waiting for him on the outside in that little towel, messing with his phone in the living room again, smile sly when he looks up and says, "Yeah. You do still smell good."

Jonny ducks his head and moves both hands through his wet hair to hide his face for a second, hide what his mouth wants to do. "You know for someone who never does this you sure act like you got game."

"Act?" Patrick says, and there it comes roaring back.

It doesn't leave the rest of the time he's there, waiting around while his clothes dry.

"I would've let you, you know," Jonny says before he can stop himself, watching a fully dressed Patrick get into his shoes. He props himself up to lean over the back of the couch, to face Patrick more easily.

"Huh?"

"The morning after stuff," Jonny says with a smile to turn it more stupid and joke-y than he actually feels. "You've been here all day anyway."

Patrick smiles back as he pulls his hood up, lets out a quiet laugh. "I'm not good at that stuff," he says, straightening his sleeves like it fucking matters in a sweatshirt. "It never feels...like enough."

Jonny feels himself go hot, keeps it off his face as well as he's been able to. "Fair."

It's a little harder to keep it off when Patrick takes a few steps in his direction, dips down towards him. "Thanks," he says before he presses one soft kiss to Jonny's mouth, and then one more when Jonny sighs.

"Yeah, anytime," Jonny says, mostly playing but also—pathetic. Seriously pathetic how much he means it in the moment.

And he keeps meaning it when Patrick pulls back. Keeps meaning it when Patrick crosses the room to the door, gives Jonny a little wave before he pulls it open and leaves through it, his head down while he climbs into his dead giveaway purple fucking Hummer.

Jonny keeps meaning it when he flops onto his back and lays himself out, catches the faint scent where Patrick was sitting and grins at the ceiling, closes his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, the title has been shortened but it's the same fic, promise! Thank you for reading!

Jonny gives his salad container a good shake, peels the lid up and off, and meets Wicks' eyes over the table. "That is impossible."

"It's not, actually," Wicks answers after she swallows the bite of her sandwich. "Considering the fact that I'm sitting right here and just told you I can smell it." She takes in a theatrical breath through her nose, swivels her head all around her neck. "I'm definitely getting notes of turkey now, but under that—"

" _How._ " Jonny stabs his fork into the middle of his spinach. "I've taken four showers in neutralizer—like, Deactivate, you know how expensive that shit is."

She lets out a low whistle and smiles at him. "I don't know what to tell you, but I do know that I'll take Rose because that sweet woman does not need to be assaulted with your dirty sex life. You can have Barb."

"Fuck you, Wicks."

She cackles at him but then leans in on her elbows, takes another bite of her sandwich. "Okay no but seriously, Tazer—what the hell?"

"What?"

"You're really gonna make me spell it out?"

He is. "What?"

She leans a little closer. "Aren't you like—two weeks off still? There's no way this guy's lingering that strong without a rut."

Jonny takes a bite of his food now, chews the mouthful slowly and takes a long drink from his water. "Who said he wasn't in rut."

"Jonathan."

"Hayley."

"I have never met someone with a death wish as great as yours. Like, is your asshole okay? That is _not_ a one rut smell if you're using fucking Deactivate."

Jonny balls up his napkin and throws it at her head, lets a little grin spread over his lips. "Who said it was one rut?"

She points a finger at him. "Yeah, you're fucking crazy. Without a heat? Jon. I had a girl over one time after I blocked _two_ ruts and she _was_ in heat and I swear to god I almost killed her."

Jonny tips back in his chair, turns the corners of his mouth down and raises his eyebrows. "Maybe you just don't have the touch."

"Oh he had a touch?"

There's still a lingering ache if Jonny focuses on it, his ass and all along the insides of his thighs, a good, deep sore, and he can still see Patrick pulling out to put his mouth—

"He had a little bit of a touch."

Wicks mimics him, tips back in her chair. “Huh.”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me,” Jonny says, and reaches out to spear more salad on his fork. 

“So how many times?”

“How many times what?”

She rolls her eyes, balls up her sandwich’s wrapper and throws it at his head now. “Why you always gotta be so difficult? How many times did he knot you? Like”—She gives him a once over, sniffs noisily—“Three times? Has to be at least two.”

For a brief second he’s tempted to lie, to say, yeah three. But he’s still feeling that fourth time in his body when he clenches his ass. Still hears Patrick’s voice, wet and strained in his ear, asking, _Can I? Oh god, can you take it again?_ pressing the heat of his knot on Jonny’s rim with short controlled bursts of his hips, and the _You’re fucking amazing_ after Jonny’s yes, his _Do it_ , a high whine between Patrick’s lips to go along with it when he knotted him for the last time. Jonny was pretty empty at that point, but he’d somehow managed to come anyway, to leak at the tip enough for Patrick to catch it with his fingers and press it to Jonny’s tongue. 

He doesn’t tell her all of that, though. He leans forward again, takes another long sip of water before he says, “Four.”

If Wicks had been drinking too he’s pretty sure she’d have spit it out in his face. Her mouth falls open, her eyes bulge. “Holy shit,” she says. “I’m calling an intervention.”

He shoves a bite in his mouth and gives her the finger.

“Bud, you’re in the wrong line of work,” she says with a laugh, water bottle pressed to her mouth before she takes a large gulp. “Surprised you haven’t been served a cease and desist from your own prostate yet.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“No but for real.” Her smile dims a little and she looks at him more seriously. “Was it good? You okay?”

Jonny slides his hand across the small table and taps her wrist a couple times. “Yeah I’m okay. And it was very good.”

She nods, satisfied. “You gonna call him again?”

Jonny’s not gonna lie, he thought about that all day yesterday. Thought about messaging Patrick to… fucking thank him or something. Make sure he knew Jonny meant it when he said ‘anytime’. He hadn’t done it, obviously. How weird would that be, begging another lay from Patrick fucking Kane, current points leader in the NHL. 

Yeah, no.

“Don’t think so,” he says. "Felt like a one time thing.”

“Shame,” Wicks says. “He smells good on you.”

Jonny groans and sniffs his armpit. “Is it really that bad?”

“Not really,” Wicks says, gathering her trash now that she’s done eating. “I just know how you smell when you haven’t… well. Been an idiot and taken several ruts and four knots apparently.”

“Does that mean I can have Rose?”

“Hell no. Barb's your punishment for being a giant slut.”

And the additional punishment for being a giant slut: Patrick Kane himself, apparently. Sort of.

Jonny spends his afternoon being called an incompetent ass by a middle aged woman who doesn't want to bend her elbow, then comes home to that fucking scent making its presence known.

He'd neutralized every single room, washed his bedding twice and gotten out his extra set of sheets, but there's still something faint when he lies down that night, enough that he's got his dick in hand within five minutes and his phone in the other, tapping Patrick's texts open to get to his pictures.

God, he _can't,_ he thinks afterwards, staring blankly at the ceiling with come spattered over his stomach. He won't be the one, can't be the one—though Patrick _had_ been the one to message first on the app, so maybe it follows that Jonny should— 

No.

He's not going to do it.

And, no matter how many times he checks his phone over the next several days, Patrick doesn't either.

His blank, bullshit Hut profile gives about as much info as Jonny's texts. _Last seen January 9th_ greets him every time he opens it, until he opens it and the whole thing’s gone entirely, deleted.

Jonny doesn’t know why it makes his face go hot, sitting there alone in his office at work, but he can feel it centering in his cheeks, spreading fast down his neck, and he laughs at himself, shakes his head and opens the "new ads" section as firmly as he can on an iPhone.

***

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

Jonny scrunches his eyebrows together, still panting while he tightens as well as he can around a knot that isn't going to get any bigger than this—and even so he feels satisfied for the moment. Heat's magic like that.

"Huh?"

"Do you have a boyfriend?" the guy—Luke—repeats, from his current position buried in Jonny's asshole.

"Is there… a reason you're asking?"

Luke bites his lip and lets out a little moan when Jonny tightens on him further. "I just—it smells like another alpha in here."

He's right, it does. Because once Luke's left and Jonny's done post-fuck cleanup, Kane's _still_ there, even after Jonny lifts his mattress up and crawls under his bed searching for whatever the culprit might be.

Half a month later and a pissy second guy asking him the same thing is the closest Jonny comes to calling Kane and demanding to know if he did something that night. What that something could be Jonny has no idea, and the ridiculousness of it is what stops him—that and the fact that Kane surely wouldn't answer his phone flying down United Center ice to bury one past Fleury.

He doesn’t know Kane’s cycle, obviously, but it’s usually a month on average, and that time comes and goes without a text asking Jonny if he’s willing to take another rut. Kane’s probably back on Quells anyway, especially with the Hawks on the road in early February. And he made it clear that this wasn’t something he did even remotely regularly. 

The smell hasn’t gone away.

“It’s not just me,” Jonny's saying one morning while he pulls his scrubs over his head. “Dudes I've brought home can smell it too. One of them picked up on it while I was in heat _and_ riding his knot. I don’t know what to do. I’ve cleaned everything, my mattress is wrapped. I’ve sprayed my rug. Nothing has ever lingered this long, even without being neuted this much.”

He can’t afford to use so much of the fancy shit. He’s not a fucking millionaire. Maybe that should be his excuse to text Kane again. Hey, so you owe me money for all the ridiculously expensive neutralizer I was forced to buy to get you out of my house, also would you like to fuck again, just asking. 

“Tell you what,” Wicks says as she takes off her cap and gathers her hair up on her head. “Pay for takeout and I’ll go to your place after work and help. It must be the three-month rut. That shit stinks for fucking ever.”

Jonny decides not to argue the stinking part.

As soon as she’s through the door, Wicks is sniffing the air. 

“It’s not that strong here, it’s really just in the bedroom,” Jonny says, dropping their bags of Indian food on the kitchen counter.

He hears her pensive hum, her shoes being kicked off, her coat dropping on the sofa, and when he’s done the same, he finds her standing in the doorway of his bedroom. 

“You’re right,” she says, walking in. “It’s definitely in here.”

She starts a hot/cold game across the room, opening his drawers, getting on her stomach to peek under his dresser—all things he’s done before—until she’s on her back on his bed, hands crossed over her stomach.

“This is where it’s the strongest.”

“Yeah.”

“Pillows?”

Jonny pokes her in the side until she scoots over and he has enough space to lie next to her on the bed. “No. I bought new ones. The old ones are sealed in a bag with neut in the shed.”

“Sheets?”

“Washed so many times I’ve lost count, _and_ other alphas have slept over but I can’t smell them.”

“Mattress?”

“Wrapped. Contour sheet also has a plastic backing”

She’s silent for a few seconds. “Did you check if there were tears in the wrap? Could have seeped in.”

Jonny hesitates, then, “No.” He thinks he would have seen it when he made the bed, but he hadn’t actually examined it properly.

They get up and pull off Jonny’s sheets and his mattress padding under the contour sheet that he’s washed too.

“Can’t feel anything,” Wicks says as she runs her hand over the plastic, more to herself than to Jonny. “But the smell is somehow a bit stronger?”

Jonny honestly can't even really tell if it's stronger or not anymore, but he's familiar with the look on her face. It’s the look she gets when something’s off with one of their patients and she can’t quite figure out what to do about it, hands on hips, lower lip between her teeth.

“Let’s turn the mattress over,” she says finally. 

“How could it be under the mattress?” he says like he hasn't checked himself.

She throws her hands up. “I don’t know, Jonathan, I’m just being thorough.”

And instead of lifting from the side as Jonny had done, they each grab a corner at the bottom and pull until the mattress is half off the box spring. 

The smell hits them first. Stronger, and he can definitely tell now. Musty like something that’s been contained way too long. It makes him wet.

“Ah-ha!” Wicks exclaims in a dramatic fashion, pointing. He follows her finger and— 

There it is. Squeezed down between his box spring and the headboard, peeking out a little: Patrick’s cap.

“I swear to god I’ve lifted this stupid mattress up five times.”

Wicks moves forward to reach in and tug it out with two fingers only, like it might attack her. “Hoo boy, this was right in the thick of the action, huh?”

The NBA logo on the back—the memory of watching it bob and sweep with the motion of Patrick’s head sends another little jolt of heat through Jonny’s middle. He bites down on an involuntary smile and snatches the hat out of her grip.

"You already know too much."

“Did you really never call him again?” Wicks says when they’ve moved to Jonny’s little dining room table, the hat safely stashed away inside two plastic freezer bags.

Jonny lifts a bite to his mouth, shrugs one shoulder like he hasn't warred with that very idea at least once every few days. "Nope."

Wicks shakes her head like he's an utter disappointment to her. "I don't understand you. If I had a reaction like that to someone's scent—" she emphasizes her words with her fork "—I'd have that pussy on speedial." 

Jonny squints his confusion at her, even though he knows what she's talking about. Sometimes he hates that she's an alpha.

"I mean I can get graphic if you want," she goes on.

"It doesn't have anything to do with _him_ ," Jonny says before she can start up. "Like, obviously it does to a certain extent, but it's the rut. Anyone…reacts that way to rut." 

She gives him an annoying, knowing little smile. "Uh-huh."

"They do."

"Yep. Old, stale, musty rut. No one can get enough of that shit."

"Why do you have to be gross?" Jonny says, and hates that she also has to be right.

He has a brief thought of her smug face when he cracks open the ziplocs later that night and takes the hat, lube, and one of his thicker dildos to bed with him.

(And if he uses Patrick's scent to break a heat solo a few days later, she doesn't need to know that either.)

***

Working in the city, it's not uncommon to get offers for free game tickets at the office, or from the group of buddies Jonny plays with casually when he has the time, but when the opportunity to see a Hawks-Panthers game presents itself towards the end of the month, it's the first time he considers turning it down even with an open schedule.

"Come onnn, man." Eric nudges him with an elbow while they're leaving the rink, bags slung over their shoulders. "Wicks bailed on me for some chick—"

"I sure did," she says from behind them.

"—And Cheyenne never wants to go. They're pretty good seats, what do you got going on?"

Jonny thinks about the cap in the ziploc bags and why he has it in the first place. Has a hilariously paranoid vision of the camera panning over and his face blasted on the jumbotron, Kane on the ice looking up at it and wondering why the fuck Jonny’s stalking him.

"I forgot I'm supposed to run all my shit by you first before I can say no," he says.

"Ooh, touchy Tazer day." Eric breaks off a little in the direction of his car, turns so he can still face them as he walks. "I don't care if you don't go, I'm just calling you fucking stupid for missing basically glass-side entertainment, baby. Free of charge."

Jonny lets out a long huff of a sigh.

It is fucking stupid. Kane’s the one who showed up at his door without a disclaimer that he'd never watch a Hawks game the same way again. And Jonny _loves_ hockey and was a Hawks fan before he sat on Patrick Kane’s dick.

The cap he hasn’t neutralized yet is probably creepier than going to a sports game along with twenty-two thousand other people anyway. Probably.

So he goes.

And tries not to stare at the giant Kane banners hanging inside the arena that he doesn't think he's ever even half glanced at before.

Or at the sea of 88s in all directions.

Or too hard at the players zipping around during warmups—these are really great fucking seats.

He can't help himself, though. Sits there picking out numbers on the backs that dash by: 81, 7, 4, 2, 10, 65, 20, 16, 27—

Nothing.

"Kane not here tonight?" he asks Eric before a sip of his beer, casual.

And it turns out he didn’t have to worry about the universe playing an evil jumbotron trick on him, because Kane _isn't_ playing that night. Jonny checks Twitter on his phone and the Hawks’ official account just says it’s due to illness. There’s a flu going around so it’s not really surprising, he guesses.

The sink of disappointment in his stomach is.

It's a swift, fleeting, weird thing that makes Jonny feel embarrassed by himself again, like his own brain is pointing and laughing. It's gradually replaced with the relaxation that comes with the knowledge that he doesn't have to worry about chance eye contact from the dot, but that fucking hat's waiting for him when he gets home from the win. Easy to spot on the living room table right when he walks through the door. 

He stands over it once he’s changed. Hands on his hips, staring at the plastic like he could somehow make it disappear. He can’t smell the rut, but somehow it’s in his nose all the same. 

To jerk off or not to jerk off, that’s the fucking question. 

His dick is already half-hard when he gives in.

***

The next day, he finally neutralizes the fuck out of it. The scent has almost completely faded anyway, now that it’s not stuck against fabric or… not always in a hermetic bag. 

He opens the bags and takes one last sniff before spritzing it with neutralizer. The fancy one. Generously. Seals it again and it’s done. 

He slaps his hands together afterwards like good job, Toews. Now they can all move on. 

An hour later, his phone buzzes with a text and he has a heart attack when he sees Patrick’s name flash on the screen.

Well. It’s really three hockey stick emojis but Jonny knows it’s him.

He stares at his phone. It buzzes again with another text. 

“Why?” he says out loud. 

_Hey can I call you?_

_It’s Patrick Kane btw_

Jonny lets one hollow laugh out into the room.

He tilts his head back and puts his book down, heart already off to the races in a way he really wishes it wouldn't do. It makes him get to his feet for a couple circuits around the coffee table, and he knows it's stupid to let the texts sit there like he hasn't seen them but he still does it, lets them sit for a whole ten minutes while he goes to load the dishwasher just to have something to do with his hands.

It _was_ good. It was really good. And Jonny knows it was really good for Patrick too unless he's some kind of amazing actor. So it's fair and—maybe should even be unsurprising that he'd call back for more. He's closeted in some way, right? Jonny didn't ask but that's definitely the assumption. And if he knows Jonny hasn't tried to fuck him over, it makes sense he'd hit up a good thing again.

Though he doesn't know why he'd wait this long.

Maybe he just wants his hat back. Jonny has witnessed stranger things.

He picks his phone up from where he laid it on the countertop and thumbs the texts back open, types in _Hey, yeah, that's cool,_ and waits.

He gets through a banana and a half before his ringtone goes off, and he almost chokes himself trying to swallow his mouthful so he can answer, eyes watering when he picks up and says, "Hello?" in his best impression of someone who didn't just have a near death experience.

"Hi," Patrick says.

"Hi," Jonny answers.

"This is Jonathan?"

No, I'm the other guy you had insane sex with and then ghosted.

"Yes. Yeah," Jonny says.

"Cool cool," Patrick says. "How are you?"

Jonny holds in a quiet breath. Horny? Frustrated? Recently incredibly well acquainted with masturbation?

"I'm good. Just got home from work, so."

"Yeah? Just got home, too. Well, the hotel."

"Mm, nice," Jonny says, and sits down at the bar with his hand over his eyes to keep from flinging himself to the floor during the slightly awkward pause that follows.

"Yeah. Sorry I'm calling kind of out of nowhere—"

"No, man, you're good—"

"—I'm just, uh—" Patrick laughs a little and fuck, god, even his voice is sexy. "I was thinking maybe we could meet up again?"

Jonny sits up straighter. Doesn't know if what he feels flood into his body is nerves or arousal. "Tonight?"

"No—no, not that short notice, I’m not in Chicago. I'm just, uh. I'm trying to time going into rut this weekend, so."

Jonny waits for more, and when more doesn't come he opens his mouth but then Patrick continues:

"And I know—like." He lets another quiet laugh out. "It's cool if not. I don't know your cycle, but you weren't in heat last time, so I thought maybe." 

"Have you blocked for months again?" Jonny bites his lip, doesn't realize how tightly he's gripped the edge of the counter until he glances down at his fingertips.

Patrick sighs into the phone. "No actually. Quells are messing with me pretty bad right now, I think I've been overdoing it or something."

Jonny’s seen patients react badly to Quells in the past when overusing them due to physical injuries or their rehab programs. They’re not an exact science and people react differently to blocking multiple heats or ruts. He’s never had to suppress more than one heat in his life, but overdosing on Quells doesn’t look like a very enjoyable experience. Their patients are always well monitored though, to try and avoid or mitigate negative effects. He’d think that millionaire athletes would have the best doctors in the world to check on that, but then again these dudes play on broken legs and with, like, three missing fingers while bleeding from both eyes so who knows. 

Something clicks in his brain and— 

“Is this why you missed the game?” he blurts out.

Silence.

Fuck. 

Jonny winces. Leans forward and presses his forehead on the counter. He wishes he’d choked on that banana after all. 

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s none of my business.”

It’s so quiet over the line for an extra moment that he pulls the phone away from his ear to check if the call is still connected. 

“It’s fine,” Patrick says eventually. “Just surprised you noticed that.” 

“I’m a fan.” Someone kill him. “Of, you know, the team and all. Hockey.”

“Kay.”

Despite his mortification, Jonny gives a small snort, and is somewhat relieved to hear Patrick’s soft laugh in return. The tension in his stomach loosens, swoops at the warm, low sound, and he smiles, feels it in the stretch of his cheek against the counter. 

“But yeah, basically,” Patrick says after clearing his throat. “I don’t want that to happen again. I’m on a mild dose to finish this road trip but I’ll be back in town Friday night. My next game is Monday so. I—uh—I need to take care of my rut this weekend.”

“Oh.”

“If you can’t, that’s fine. No worries. I just thought—”

“No I—” Jonny straightens and runs a hand through his hair, rubs his chest where his breath feels short and unsteady. “I’m just surprised you called at all. It didn’t feel like—like something you’d—you know.”

Air blows into his ear, and he doesn’t know if it’s a sigh or another laugh. 

“I’ll be honest,” Patrick says. “I wasn’t really planning on—doing it again. But.” 

Jonny closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. For some reason he knows Patrick’s sucking in his bottom lip right now. Imagines it anyway.

“I had to sort of… take care of myself,” Patrick continues, voice lower and gravelly, and Jonny heats up. “Before taking the temporary suppressants I’m on right now and I—I kept thinking. You know. About that night. How good it was.”

God. 

_God_.

Just the thought of it. 

“Yeah?” It comes out breathy, choked up, but Jonny resists clearing his throat.

“Yeah. And I—I thought, if you were free and, you know, wanted to. It could be good. Again.”

He’s not wetting up. Not really. But he squeezes his ass like he is. Squeezes tight enough it shakes his thighs. Fuck, to sit on that knot again…

“I’d—uh—I’d like that.” 

“Yeah?” Jonny can hear the smile in his voice, the cocky turn of his lips. This asshole knows what he’s doing, Jonny would bet on it. And it’s working. It’s really fucking working. 

“You know you give good dick, man. I thought we talked about fishing.” He means it to come off more jokey, less complimentary than it ends up sounding, but he doesn’t correct himself, chest all heated up and the back of his neck red, he knows.

Patrick laughs quietly. “Well you give good—”

“Don't say hole.”

The laugh turns loud and bright in his ear and Jonny smiles too. 

“No I was—Everything, yeah. I meant. Everything. It was—”

Part of him wants to ask. Wants to know how many times Patrick’s done that with other dudes. If he’s gay or bi or what. Wants to ask why he’s risking it if he could just get some omega chick. But instead he says,

“Come to my place Saturday afternoon. We can hang out while your suppressants wear off. If you want. It just might be—easier.”

God, please, let me make out with you.

“Yeah, that—Yeah, that’d be good. I’ll be there around one?”

Jonny takes a deep breath, heart fluttering. “Okay.”

“Okay well. See you then.”

After hanging up, he sets his phone slowly and carefully face down on the counter beside Patrick’s hat. He stares at it for a long moment before reaching out with two fingers, sliding the bag towards him. He cracks it open, inhales deeply. 

Nothing. The scent’s gone.

“Fuck,” he whispers, presses a palm between his legs where he’s hard, and then behind himself, to the wet spot on his sweats.

So much for that.


End file.
